Modern Basildon was not built on empty land. Before the New Town was designated in 1949, the area contained old village centres, farms, cottages, plotland houses, shops, halls, schools, pubs and small businesses spread across Laindon, Pitsea, Vange, Nevendon and Langdon Hills. The construction of the New Town changed that landscape on an enormous scale. Basildon Development Corporation acquired large areas of land and many existing buildings disappeared as new housing estates, roads, industrial areas and shopping centres were created.
Church Hill, Laindon – destroyed 15 April 1964
Laindon Hall was one of the older named houses in the Laindon area. Unlike many buildings that disappeared directly through planned redevelopment, the hall was destroyed by fire after being attacked by arsonists on 15 April 1964. Its loss removed another physical connection with the older settlement that had existed before the New Town.
The Church Hill area once contained a mixture of individual houses and older properties with their own names, a pattern typical of pre-New Town Laindon. As redevelopment advanced, this scattered landscape was replaced by a much more regular system of modern roads and estates.
Church Hill, Laindon – demolished after November 1967
Drumcondra House was another substantial property in the Church Hill area. Telephone records associate T. S. Creagh with the house from 1937 until 1959. During the 1960s it acquired a very different role when Basildon Rugby Football Club used it as changing accommodation before the club moved to Gloucester Park.
The house survived into the later 1960s but was subsequently demolished. Its history is a good example of an older private residence finding a temporary community use during the transition from old Laindon to the developing New Town.
Laindon High Road – closed January 1967
Laindon Memorial Hall was an important community building long before the New Town. It was in existence by November 1923 and hosted meetings, social events and other local activities. During the Second World War a British Restaurant operated there from 8 December 1941, providing inexpensive meals at a time of rationing and wartime disruption.
The hall closed in January 1967 as the old High Road was increasingly affected by redevelopment. Buildings like the Memorial Hall demonstrate that pre-New Town Laindon already possessed its own social institutions and community life; these were not created from nothing after 1949.
High Road, Laindon – former fire brigade building
The old Laindon fire station stood among the shops and businesses of High Road. It was used by the Essex County Fire Brigade and later for private vehicle storage. The building survived beyond its original operational use but, like much of the old commercial High Road, eventually disappeared during redevelopment.
Laindon High Road once had a dense collection of independent businesses that gave the settlement the character of a traditional shopping street. Among the buildings later demolished were premises occupied at different times by Henbest for Honesty, Johnston's, chemists, Harry's Fruiterers, restaurants, clothing businesses, coach operators and professional services.
Many of these were modest detached or semi-detached buildings rather than purpose-built shopping blocks. Their disappearance during the 1960s and 1970s represented more than the loss of individual shops: it removed much of the physical appearance of old Laindon's commercial centre.